Letting the Rebels die would see the Force finally flourish

There was once a time in Super Rugby where the expansion franchise Western Force were a promising outfit for Australian rugby.

Aided by salary cap exemptions which saw the club land high-profile talent in Nathan Sharpe, Drew Mitchell and Matt Giteau in the early years, they bagged next generation stars too in David Pocock and James O’Connor.

Their maiden season in 2006 was tough, wins were hard to come by but they routinely pulled in crowds of over 20,000 at Subiaco Oval. Those numbers with today’s attendance standards would be loved by any club.

From 2007 to 2009 the Force were a decent outfit finishing mid-table with an overall record of 19-2-18 without making the playoffs.

However, back in those days the regular season actually mattered unlike today’s mickey mouse comp, with four highly contested playoff spots ensuring only the elite teams made it out of 14. The Western Force proved to be a good side with promise, even a winning side.

Once the Melbourne Rebels joined the competition in 2011, the Force suffered.

The flow of talent from east to west dried up as potential signings took the easier option of staying on the east coast and the anonymity of Melbourne. The Force began to slide down the ladder and losing seasons became standard procedure.

The Rebels never had the local support of the Force and have been a money pit ever since. And they’ve been a bunch of losers to boot. They have never put together anything remotely notable. When push came to shove in 2017, Rugby Australia wanted to save them.

On the flip side, Rugby Australia has nearly done everything to try and kill the Force yet they survived. As far as stress tests go, this is as good as pass mark there is. They keep coming back despite every effort to leave them in the dust.

After the success of the Perth sevens last weekend which saw a sold out crowd on the final day there are suggestions that the event should ‘rotate around the Australian cities’.

We’ve seen what the Super round has been like in Melbourne for two years and it’s been a poorly attended failure. Any other team deserves to host Super round but Melbourne.

What Perth has shown last weekend is that rugby in multiple formats is viable there, the sevens has been an initial success, and they deserve to keep it and see where it grows.

And while Sydney and Brisbane may offer traditional rugby audiences, Melbourne of all places, needs to stay away from it. Rugby administrators need to say thanks, but no thanks to Victorian government play money.

Melbourne is a great city, but it’s crowded by other sports and after more than a decade rugby has just not got a decent footing. It’s the epicentre of the AFL universe and has a highly successful rugby league side who actually win titles.

Smart money would say it’s time to cut losses and double down on something likely to flourish. A one-off Test in Melbourne for the Wallabies is all that’s viable currently.

Western Australia by contrast does not have a professional rugby league team to compete with, only two AFL teams which is far less than Melbourne, and has a decent rugby footprint at grass roots, at least much more than Victoria.

The timezone is touted as a detractor but it is the perfect location for Sunday afternoon rugby, potentially giving the Australian east coast and New Zealand a consistent Sunday night game. Super Rugby is largely absent on Sundays giving the NRL and AFL free rein.

If the Western Force had the Melbourne Rebels’ roster this year you’d expect some hype and possibly a near-full HBF Park if they started well. Instead the side will go largely unnoticed in the Victorian capital regardless of what they achieve.

There have been notable success stories from the Rebels from local Victorian players who have made the Wallabies coming through the homegrown pathway. Whilst touching to see, the cost of those few wins has been enormous. If there weren’t any at this point, you’d be stunned.

It’s time to accept that Super Rugby and Melbourne hasn’t worked out, clearly. It’s a battle not worth the money when there are far better, and much-needed, other strategic moves to make to strengthen rugby in Australia.

Letting the Rebels die would see the Force finally flourish. The Force would still need to recruit heavily from the three other rugby states, but culling Melbourne would help. With four teams the talent will consolidate and the Wallabies may well benefit from that concentrated player base.

Australian rugby figures often run circles around their New Zealand counterparts when it comes to business, but this one has proven to be a lame duck venture time and time again.

The opportunity remains to grab market share out west and build on the rugby base there before rugby league, despite the damage done by rugby in the past.

That is surely a wiser venture than the sunk-cost fallacy that is the Rebels.